| Creepy
>> Tony Millionaire shoots for the younger set with Sock Monkey: A Children’s Book
by JULIET WATERS I was raised on hardcore children’s lit. Particularly memorable was a Victorian edition of fairy tales in which little girls danced themselves to death, and a collection of German morality tales called Struwwelpeter in which poor little Suck-a-Thumb was visited one afternoon by a man with giant scissors who left him with two bloody stumps for thumbs. I’m not so sure this was a good thing. But now that I have a sense of irony, I understand why my mother found these stories amusing-though I remember being pretty damn scared when bedtime rolled around.
Devoted fans may be disappointed with Millionaire’s illustrated novella, Sock Monkey: A Children’s Book. This tale about the origins of the sock monkey and his plush, lush sidekick Drinky Crow, harks back to a world far more innocent. Taken as a prequel, it feels dumbed down. But taken as what it’s meant to be, a children’s book, it works beautifully. Millionaire has said in interviews that “I have finally written the children’s book I always wanted to find behind the walls of my grandmother’s back staircase.” He’s also written the kind of book I wish I’d had.
The story works as a gentle parody of The Velveteen Rabbit. How the come-to-life toys in Ann-Louise’s house come into existence is not “the normal way at all,” explains her cornhusk doll. “Normally it has to do with the love of a child and so forth, if you know what I mean, or in the case of the ragdoll, I believe that she came into being around the time that the new electrical system was being installed.” Each toy has its own come-to-life story. In the case of the crow, it happened when a real crow feather pierced his brown velvet coat. In the case of the sock monkey it all started in a jungle in Borneo, when Ann-Louise’s grandfather, the Captain, discovered an orchid into which a real monkey’s tooth had fallen. One day, back at their home in New England, the orchid is knocked over and the tooth ends up becoming imbedded in the heel of the Captain’s sock. This is the same sock from which the sock monkey is made as a birthday present for Ann-Louise.
Sock Monkey: A Children’s
Book, by Tony Millionaire, Dark Horse Books, pb, 80pp, $14.95 |
I
suspect Tony Millionaire, author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed
Sock Monkey comic book series, was raised on the same kind of stuff.
He draws as though the finely detailed etchings in Victorian children’s
books were imprinted on his soul. Uncle Gabby, Millionaire’s creepy
though lovable sock monkey, is a little like what might happen if you
buried the Velveteen rabbit in Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. In
a scene from the most recent installment, Uncle Gabby accidentally kills
a baby bird. In a state of remorse, he plunges a pair of scissors into
his head only to discover that he cannot die and must wander through
life as a “soulless monster.” These stories have gained
a loyal adult audience, but give them to a young child and that child
may very well grow up into the kind of middle-aged person who still
has to sleep with his stuffed animals.
Millionaire
isn’t the first alternative comic artist to take a stab at children’s
literature. A couple of years ago, Art Spiegelman and Françoise
Mouly edited Little Lit, a book of folklore and fairy tales written
and illustrated by artists ranging from Dan Clowes to Chris Ware. But
while those were takes on the classics, Millionaire may be the first
to attempt to write his own classic.
Each
toy also has a challenge to which it must adjust. The cornhusk doll
has lost her eyes. The crow has a tendency to histrionics. The sock
monkey, with his long limbs and vacant expression, will always be a
little creepy no matter what. But in the end he finds a way to use his
creepiness for noble purposes. Just as Millionaire has found a way to
use his pen. :